RCSD offices due to be closed on Fridays

ROSAMOND — The Rosamond Community Services District offices, 3179 35th St. West, will be closed on Fridays beginning Nov. 1.

The District Board of Directors unanimously approved the new office hours at its meeting on Wednesday.

While the office will be closed, staff will still be available for service calls.

At the suggestion of Director Ben Stewart, the closure will be reviewed in the future to ensure it is not adversely affecting customers.

The closure is the result of staffing issues, as District personnel work on a schedule of four 10-hour days per week. In order to provide customer service coverage in the office for five days per week, schedules have had to be shifted and staff from the finance department used to cover shifts, General Manager Steve Perez said.

This has led to issues with the finance assistant who covers the customer service desk not having

enough time to cover her own tasks.

“It’s cheaper for us not to hire another body to backfill that position,” he said.

There is little customer traffic to the office on Fridays, and the District staff feels the impact to the public will be minimal, as many customers believe the office is closed then anyway, Perez said.

“The traffic to the front counter on Friday is very limited,” he said.

Most of the dozen or so customers who do come to the office on Fridays do so because they have been instructed it is the last day to pay bills or fines, he said.

The District instituted Friday closures as a money-saving measure in 2010, furloughing employees as well as cutting positions. It was reversed several years later.

The staffing issue came about as the result of a ruling by the Public Employee Relations Board. When the Friday hours were restored, staff were already working the four, 10-hour day week and filed a complaint about switching to a five-day workweek, Perez said.

The labor board ruled that the District was in the wrong because it did not confer with the employees’ union before changing the workweek, and the four-10 weeks were restored.